June252013

Curate Large Information Collections Into Navigable Presentation-Maps with Mindomo

Robin Good: If you are looking for a content curation, mindmapping and presentation tool rolled into one, I strongly suggest you give a good road test to Mindomo.

I have been a passionate fan of mindmaps since 2007, and have created tons of them to curate my many collection of "best tools" in specific niches or learning maps on dedicated topics. You can see some of them here: http://www.mindmeister.com/users/channel/RobinGood

But with time, and the increased size of my collections, I have been searching for valid alternatives which provided greater speed, better ways to display and view the mapped info and more options to extract value from my collections.

Mindomo, which I have been heavy-testing for the last six-months, is my new reference tool not just for mindmapping but for a) curating large collections of information into a navigable cohesive whole, b) creating prezi-like presentations without needing to become an engineer.

Specifically, Mindomo integrates lots of unique and very valuable features to the basic mindmapping toolset, including:

- Capture content via browser bookmarklet

- Navigate and zoom in-out easily

- Search and embed video clips- Search and embed images

- Search and embed audio clips

- Automatically credit all media sources utilized

- Customize look of maps in many ways

- Create presentations from your mindmaps

- Import and export to different formats + embed

- Works and syncs on iPad and Android

- Collaborative editing

- Cross-platform offline desktop app

- Custom URLs for your mindmaps

- just to name a few.

Here's a good example of what I have been able to "curate" with Mindomo:

MindMeister and other mindmapping tools still provide good value, but in my humble opinion Mindomo, with its own limits and idiosyncracies, has earned my trust as being the most effective, powerful and feature-rich visual curation tool.

Curate Large Information Collections Into Navigable Presentation-Maps with Mindomo

Robin Good: If you are looking for a content curation, mindmapping and presentation tool rolled into one, I strongly suggest you give a good road test to Mindomo.

I have been a passionate fan of mindmaps since 2007, and have created tons of them to curate my many collection of "best tools" in specific niches or learning maps on dedicated topics. You can see some of them here: http://www.mindmeister.com/users/channel/RobinGood

But with time, and the increased size of my collections, I have been searching for valid alternatives which provided greater speed, better ways to display and view the mapped info and more options to extract value from my collections.

Mindomo, which I have been heavy-testing for the last six-months, is my new reference tool not just for mindmapping but for a) curating large collections of information into a navigable cohesive whole, b) creating prezi-like presentations without needing to become an engineer.

Specifically, Mindomo integrates lots of unique and very valuable features to the basic mindmapping toolset, including:

- Capture content via browser bookmarklet

- Navigate and zoom in-out easily

- Search and embed video clips- Search and embed images

- Search and embed audio clips

- Automatically credit all media sources utilized

- Customize look of maps in many ways

- Create presentations from your mindmaps

- Import and export to different formats + embed

- Works and syncs on iPad and Android

- Collaborative editing

- Cross-platform offline desktop app

- Custom URLs for your mindmaps

- just to name a few.

Here's a good example of what I have been able to "curate" with Mindomo:

MindMeister and other mindmapping tools still provide good value, but in my humble opinion Mindomo, with its own limits and idiosyncracies, has earned my trust as being the most effective, powerful and feature-rich visual curation tool.

June162013

In the latest #socialortho tweetchat, physicians, surgeons, physical therapists, athletic trainers and many other sports experts discussed the current culture of youth sports and ways we can all make a difference.

In the latest #socialortho tweetchat, physicians, surgeons, physical therapists, athletic trainers and many other sports experts discussed the current culture of youth sports and ways we can all make a difference.

June052013

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) and ExactTarget (NYSE: ET]) announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which salesforce.com will acquire ExactTarget in a transaction valued at approximately $2.5 billion.

Salesforce.com's acquisition of ExactTarget will further its mission of being the world's leading CRM platform—one that enables companies to transform how they connect with their customers across sales, service, and marketing. By combining ExactTarget's leading digital marketing capabilities with salesforce.com's leading sales, service and social marketing solutions, salesforce.com will create a world-class marketing platform across email, social, mobile and the web.

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) and ExactTarget (NYSE: ET]) announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which salesforce.com will acquire ExactTarget in a transaction valued at approximately $2.5 billion.

Salesforce.com's acquisition of ExactTarget will further its mission of being the world's leading CRM platform—one that enables companies to transform how they connect with their customers across sales, service, and marketing. By combining ExactTarget's leading digital marketing capabilities with salesforce.com's leading sales, service and social marketing solutions, salesforce.com will create a world-class marketing platform across email, social, mobile and the web.

The big story today is the acquisition of ExactTarget by Salesforce.com. Most likely, we start to see analysis over the next few days, and very curious as to what chiefmartec.com has to say. So no deep think pieces today, and they will be published over the next few days. In the interim, we have an inventory of great content covering a wide area of B2B marketing technology: gamification, conversion tips, use of social by CEOs, and so forth. Dig in peeps.

Receive a daily summary of The Marketing Automation Alert directly to your inbox. Subscribe here (your privacy is protected). If you find this valuable, please share by using the links below:

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) and ExactTarget (NYSE: ET]) announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which salesforce.com will acquire ExactTarget in a transaction valued at approximately $2.5 billion.

Salesforce.com's acquisition of ExactTarget will further its mission of being the world's leading CRM platform—one that enables companies to transform how they connect with their customers across sales, service, and marketing. By combining ExactTarget's leading digital marketing capabilities with salesforce.com's leading sales, service and social marketing solutions, salesforce.com will create a world-class marketing platform across email, social, mobile and the web.

Brands use social media to engage and deepen relationships with consumers. But Wharton School’s Pinar Yildirim warns of the risk in sensational content and minority opinions when it comes to user-generated content (UGC).

Digest...

We know it’s good to engage your customers. It’s not true, however, that any engagement is good engagement. Brands should not have blind faith in high numbers. Instead, media managers’ goal should be meaningful interactions that deepen relationships with their best customers.

The right metrics in social media are crucial, but interpretation is just as important and this is where I’m going to focus. When it comes to social media content, there are two tendencies to be wary of — sensationalism and extreme opinions.

So, my first piece of advice for managers is: do not to fall into the sensationalism trap and be careful how you interpret social media. Emotional, controversial, or exaggerated messaging might attract attention — and even boost your social media fans or followers’ number in the short term — but are people really buying into your brand? Moreover, could it be harmful in the long term? If brand-related content is going to chime in on the topic of the moment, make sure it does so in a way that ties back to your brand and what it stands for.

This brings us to my second piece of advice. When social media’s most active users are consumers with polarized opinions, managers must carefully interpret the data they gather from it. It can be detrimental when companies – and big data analysts – treat the opinions of a small, and possibly polarized, vocal group as representing the opinions of the rest.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Dr. Yildirim is spot-on: we can all get excited about the minority opinion, be it good or bad. That's the void you risk falling into without proper metrics in place. Stay away from the most vocal and stick with the fundamentals.

Gamification is transforming business strategies across organizations large and small. It sounds like child's play, but getting it right takes work. Here's why gaming is worth the time and expense:

1. Games boost intelligence.

2. Games make annual evaluations better for both bosses and employees.

3. Games engage millennials.

4. Games succeed when they give players a higher purpose.

5. You won't believe how much work they'll put into a game.

6. Games boost performance.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

This is a post targeted towards the transmission of knowledge to a particular audience, in this case employees. But let's take this one step further...

What is the goal of your content marketing strategy? To educate, to transmit knowledge, to be perceived as the thought leader. We encourage you to read this post and take the lessons learned and apply it to your own "teaching methods" otherwise known as content distribution.

Gamification: one of the great underutilized B2B tactics out there. In fact, the greatest underutilized B2B tactics in no particular order:

Here are a few statistics from a recent Demand Gen report, “2012 B2B Buyer Behavior Survey:” 67% of B2B buyers are using a wider variety of resources to research vendors & products; 55% say they spend more time researching purchases; 60% of buyers state that white papers and other authoritative content are extremely influential in the purchase process.

The data from this report is important, especially for the GDN, for a few reasons:

In general, B2B buyers are spending more time researching purchases online. This means that the GDN is a perfect match for this mindset. On the GDN advertisers can place ads alongside content that is relevant and timely for their products. Also, the purchase intent of B2B buys is a great match for the GDN. When many B2B buyers are conducting research, they aren’t in the mode to purchase yet. They are still in the research mode. We have found that softer conversion actions such as whitepapers, case studies, free trials and free demos work great on the GDN. So, the mindset of a B2B buyer is focused on research and hunting great content – and the by placing ads through the GDN, advertisers can get in front of the right people at the right time with the right conversion action.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

We don't see the ROI here relative to other tactics, but always strive to keep you informed as to the pros and cons of various tactics.

A discussion with Liveclicker's Justin Foster on the growth of embedding video in email and what that means for marketers.

Key excerpts...

VideoEmail provides a simple yet powerful solution marketers use to embed videos that can play back right in the inbox. The basic idea is to bring messages to life, create a more dynamic inbox experience, and drive up the number of people who watch videos. The product is delivered to clients as a safe and straightforward block of HTML that is copied and pasted into the email message prior to sending.

HOWEVER...

By far the biggest restriction is that not all mail clients support video. Unfortunately, the list of non-supporting clients includes popular mail clients like Outlook 2007 and 2010, plus many Android phones.

A study conducted by Forrester Research and the Business Marketing Association has revealed that 97 percent of business-to-business marketing leaders are taking on responsibilities they have never had to before, including managing social media on a regular basis.

The findings, released Wednesday, also revealed that more than 70 percent of the 117 B2B marketers surveyed are concerned about brand integrity and execution in social media, and 60 percent admit they are looking to hire young talent to help them navigate new and ever-changing technology. The problem that marketers face, however, is that the talent is hard to find—about 47 percent say they can't find people with the right skill sets, and 28 percent say it's nearly impossible to fill important positions.

As a result, the role of the traditional marketer has expanded significantly. According to the study, 87 percent of marketers have found that peer departments seek their input and data much more; 78 percent claim the marketing organization's influence on corporate strategy is much greater; 77 percent believe the stature of marketing's seat at the executive round table has risen; and 56 percent say they spend more time in front of the company's board of directors than in the past.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Technology, data and social media have opened up a brand new seat at the table for Marketing, especially if there is attribution and ROI metrics.

Senior executives whose CEOs use social media are extremely positive about the effects of their CEOs’ actions, per results from a study [pdf] by Weber Shandwick. However, many CEOs haven’t made the move to social media use yet, and the study results indicate that perceived risk is a key impediment. Senior executives with “unsocial” CEOs were asked the reasons why their CEO does not participate in social media, with almost one-third responding that it’s too risky. That was one of the top barriers, slightly behind social not being typical for the region or industry (35%), the CEO seeing no measurable return on investment (34%), and a lack of demand for the CEO to do so (34%).

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Combine the lack of ROI and the "too risky," and this makes sense: why would a CEO want to put himself/herself out there if there is risk with an unknown upside? It's not about being unsocial, but about being risk adverse, especially in this litigious environment.

87% of B2B content consumers say that online content has a major (27%) or moderate (60%) impact on their vendor selection, according to [download page] a new report from the CMO Council and NetLine, and 35% believe that online content highlights the vendors that best understand their needs. With such emphasis being placed on content marketing, it’s imperative that B2B brands understand what types of content best influence these buyers.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Great table, and a resource we recommend that you use to compare your own content.

LinkedIn has been busy upgrading pieces to its business social network in recent weeks, with updates to its contacts, the release of a new mobile contacts app for iPhone, revamped user profiles, the addition of channels to its news site LinkedIn Today and, most recently, added security via two-step authentication. Now, the company is rolling out improved analytics and a new look for its “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” feature, which tracks the number of times your name has appeared in LinkedIn Search, and how that has changed over time.

The big story today is the acquisition of ExactTarget by Salesforce.com. Most likely, we start to see analysis over the next few days, and very curious as to what chiefmartec.com has to say. So no deep think pieces today, and they will be published over the next few days. In the interim, we have an inventory of great content covering a wide area of B2B marketing technology: gamification, conversion tips, use of social by CEOs, and so forth. Dig in peeps.

Receive a daily summary of The Marketing Automation Alert directly to your inbox. Subscribe here (your privacy is protected). If you find this valuable, please share by using the links below:

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) and ExactTarget (NYSE: ET]) announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which salesforce.com will acquire ExactTarget in a transaction valued at approximately $2.5 billion.

Salesforce.com's acquisition of ExactTarget will further its mission of being the world's leading CRM platform—one that enables companies to transform how they connect with their customers across sales, service, and marketing. By combining ExactTarget's leading digital marketing capabilities with salesforce.com's leading sales, service and social marketing solutions, salesforce.com will create a world-class marketing platform across email, social, mobile and the web.

Brands use social media to engage and deepen relationships with consumers. But Wharton School’s Pinar Yildirim warns of the risk in sensational content and minority opinions when it comes to user-generated content (UGC).

Digest...

We know it’s good to engage your customers. It’s not true, however, that any engagement is good engagement. Brands should not have blind faith in high numbers. Instead, media managers’ goal should be meaningful interactions that deepen relationships with their best customers.

The right metrics in social media are crucial, but interpretation is just as important and this is where I’m going to focus. When it comes to social media content, there are two tendencies to be wary of — sensationalism and extreme opinions.

So, my first piece of advice for managers is: do not to fall into the sensationalism trap and be careful how you interpret social media. Emotional, controversial, or exaggerated messaging might attract attention — and even boost your social media fans or followers’ number in the short term — but are people really buying into your brand? Moreover, could it be harmful in the long term? If brand-related content is going to chime in on the topic of the moment, make sure it does so in a way that ties back to your brand and what it stands for.

This brings us to my second piece of advice. When social media’s most active users are consumers with polarized opinions, managers must carefully interpret the data they gather from it. It can be detrimental when companies – and big data analysts – treat the opinions of a small, and possibly polarized, vocal group as representing the opinions of the rest.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Dr. Yildirim is spot-on: we can all get excited about the minority opinion, be it good or bad. That's the void you risk falling into without proper metrics in place. Stay away from the most vocal and stick with the fundamentals.

Gamification is transforming business strategies across organizations large and small. It sounds like child's play, but getting it right takes work. Here's why gaming is worth the time and expense:

1. Games boost intelligence.

2. Games make annual evaluations better for both bosses and employees.

3. Games engage millennials.

4. Games succeed when they give players a higher purpose.

5. You won't believe how much work they'll put into a game.

6. Games boost performance.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

This is a post targeted towards the transmission of knowledge to a particular audience, in this case employees. But let's take this one step further...

What is the goal of your content marketing strategy? To educate, to transmit knowledge, to be perceived as the thought leader. We encourage you to read this post and take the lessons learned and apply it to your own "teaching methods" otherwise known as content distribution.

Gamification: one of the great underutilized B2B tactics out there. In fact, the greatest underutilized B2B tactics in no particular order:

Here are a few statistics from a recent Demand Gen report, “2012 B2B Buyer Behavior Survey:” 67% of B2B buyers are using a wider variety of resources to research vendors & products; 55% say they spend more time researching purchases; 60% of buyers state that white papers and other authoritative content are extremely influential in the purchase process.

The data from this report is important, especially for the GDN, for a few reasons:

In general, B2B buyers are spending more time researching purchases online. This means that the GDN is a perfect match for this mindset. On the GDN advertisers can place ads alongside content that is relevant and timely for their products. Also, the purchase intent of B2B buys is a great match for the GDN. When many B2B buyers are conducting research, they aren’t in the mode to purchase yet. They are still in the research mode. We have found that softer conversion actions such as whitepapers, case studies, free trials and free demos work great on the GDN. So, the mindset of a B2B buyer is focused on research and hunting great content – and the by placing ads through the GDN, advertisers can get in front of the right people at the right time with the right conversion action.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

We don't see the ROI here relative to other tactics, but always strive to keep you informed as to the pros and cons of various tactics.

A discussion with Liveclicker's Justin Foster on the growth of embedding video in email and what that means for marketers.

Key excerpts...

VideoEmail provides a simple yet powerful solution marketers use to embed videos that can play back right in the inbox. The basic idea is to bring messages to life, create a more dynamic inbox experience, and drive up the number of people who watch videos. The product is delivered to clients as a safe and straightforward block of HTML that is copied and pasted into the email message prior to sending.

HOWEVER...

By far the biggest restriction is that not all mail clients support video. Unfortunately, the list of non-supporting clients includes popular mail clients like Outlook 2007 and 2010, plus many Android phones.

A study conducted by Forrester Research and the Business Marketing Association has revealed that 97 percent of business-to-business marketing leaders are taking on responsibilities they have never had to before, including managing social media on a regular basis.

The findings, released Wednesday, also revealed that more than 70 percent of the 117 B2B marketers surveyed are concerned about brand integrity and execution in social media, and 60 percent admit they are looking to hire young talent to help them navigate new and ever-changing technology. The problem that marketers face, however, is that the talent is hard to find—about 47 percent say they can't find people with the right skill sets, and 28 percent say it's nearly impossible to fill important positions.

As a result, the role of the traditional marketer has expanded significantly. According to the study, 87 percent of marketers have found that peer departments seek their input and data much more; 78 percent claim the marketing organization's influence on corporate strategy is much greater; 77 percent believe the stature of marketing's seat at the executive round table has risen; and 56 percent say they spend more time in front of the company's board of directors than in the past.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Technology, data and social media have opened up a brand new seat at the table for Marketing, especially if there is attribution and ROI metrics.

Senior executives whose CEOs use social media are extremely positive about the effects of their CEOs’ actions, per results from a study [pdf] by Weber Shandwick. However, many CEOs haven’t made the move to social media use yet, and the study results indicate that perceived risk is a key impediment. Senior executives with “unsocial” CEOs were asked the reasons why their CEO does not participate in social media, with almost one-third responding that it’s too risky. That was one of the top barriers, slightly behind social not being typical for the region or industry (35%), the CEO seeing no measurable return on investment (34%), and a lack of demand for the CEO to do so (34%).

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Combine the lack of ROI and the "too risky," and this makes sense: why would a CEO want to put himself/herself out there if there is risk with an unknown upside? It's not about being unsocial, but about being risk adverse, especially in this litigious environment.

87% of B2B content consumers say that online content has a major (27%) or moderate (60%) impact on their vendor selection, according to [download page] a new report from the CMO Council and NetLine, and 35% believe that online content highlights the vendors that best understand their needs. With such emphasis being placed on content marketing, it’s imperative that B2B brands understand what types of content best influence these buyers.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Great table, and a resource we recommend that you use to compare your own content.

LinkedIn has been busy upgrading pieces to its business social network in recent weeks, with updates to its contacts, the release of a new mobile contacts app for iPhone, revamped user profiles, the addition of channels to its news site LinkedIn Today and, most recently, added security via two-step authentication. Now, the company is rolling out improved analytics and a new look for its “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” feature, which tracks the number of times your name has appeared in LinkedIn Search, and how that has changed over time.

May312013

May
31

with five rows of shining Shentuo beads

Update: 22-9- time is quietly in the past more than a month, the peak from time to time and you elders fighting alone,Oakley Oil Rig, sometimes a feeling, with the help of this as wander like, strength is rapidly improve. Quietly sitting cross-legged on the ground, the peak of the mind is quietly on his body, with five rows of shining Shentuo beads around his soul slowly rotating, and its surrounding, five has very obvious illusory fog air keep rolling, which like the stars twinkling, is very charming, is really five lines is brewed from beads. "Ha ha ha five wins bead finally is condensed out of the! As long as they once condensed forming, I quickly take, then directly can experience many mysteries which contains five psychic powers,Air Jordan 13 UK Sale, in one fell swoop king realm! Although I'm just king began, but with the five row Shentuo beads, achievement blade emperor also is just a matter of time! Once the breakthrough to the blade emperor, I would like other elders, careful understanding spiritual mystery, hit a peak trick belongs to me!" Heart for his R ì after cultivation way going forward, peak heart more excitement. "After three months I had to leave the small sacred world, Sara, I" mouth provokes a smile, peak head is suddenly pictured Aileen as elegant lotus appearance, in the heart a sweet and happy. This year the small sacred world practice, peak strength almost changed turn the world upside down. Not only the achievement of the king is strong, the Dragon ascension fully into the peak fist punches on his own, and is not much difference between occult power. It is the magical foot star seven step reached very proficient, but still not enough understanding for speed, not the speed rise again, but even so, in the hostilities have an important role to the sky, even earlier,oakley sunglasses outlet, in the invincible position. Of course, the biggest harvest or horizons to click into place, and the martial arts skills and battle of the speed of growth, it is an intangible wealth, makes the peak for endless. While the peak is not known, as he then relieved himself, something about him, but quietly in the beast God Island aroused no small storm. Balut since blood maple forest, is returned to the beast God Island, for some reason, stay on the beast God Island, did not return to Odin. And in a R ì, is heard that the club have a nice up peak disciple, can use the mainland's top fierce beast unique coercion, it aroused no small storm in the beast God Island, the big elder is more personally to the club. One almost instantly is concluded, the club's disciple, is himself an old Chinese practice good brothers, peak! Now that his brother might have some trouble, one will not stand idly by, decisive to the elders live, y ù demanded to see each other, but was told that the elders do not return, that long call tone, cable x ì ng directly to stay in the big elder place, waiting for the return. "Whew!" After waiting for six hours, on the ballot, >